The Philippines women's national football team is the women's national football team of the Philippines. It is controlled by the Philippine Football Federation, the governing body of football in the country. The women's national football team of the Philippines was formalized in the 1980s. The Philippines has participated in the Women's Asian Cup, first participating in 1981 when the tournament was still known as the AFC Women's Championship. The Philippines hosted the tournament in 1999 in Iloilo and Bacolod. They had a hiatus from the continental tournament after taking part in the 2003 with a qualification process being introduced in the 2006 edition. They returned to the AFC Women's Asian Cup in 2018 after qualifying in 2017. In that iteration of the tournament, they progress to the knockout stages for the very first time in their Asian Cup participation history. In Southeast Asian football, the Philippine women's team has limited success in the AFF Women's Championship and Southeast Asian Games with their only honor being the third place finish at the 1985 Southeast Asian Games which saw only three teams participating in the women's football event. The head coach of the national team since August 2018 is Marnelli Dimzon and the team is 74th in the women's FIFA ranking as of December 2018.
History
Early years
The Philippines women's national football team was formally organized after the Philippine Ladies' Football Association was established in 1980 by Cristina Ramos. The Philippines managed to make its first podium finish in a tournament when it won bronze at the 1985 Southeast Asian Games. However the football event of the tournament was only contested by two other teams, Thailand and Singapore with the Philippines not winning a single match.
2000s
Marlon Maro coached the women's national football team as early as 2001 when he guided the national team through the 2001 Southeast Asian Games. He was head coach of the national team until 2007, coaching the team for the last time at the 2007 Southeast Asian Games
The Philippine national team participated at the 2011 AFF Women's Championship in Laos from 16–25 October, after being inactive for the last 21 months. The national team had a training camp in the United States in 2012. The team management scouted for players with Filipino heritage in the United States for the national team. Part of the training camp was participation at the 2012 LA Viking Cup, which saw the national team play against American club sides California Cosmos, Metro Stars and Leon. The national team won the tournament beating California Cosmos in the final 4–3 on extra time, the scoreline between the two teams was 1–1 before extra time.
The national team attempted to qualify for the 2014 AFC Women's Asian Cup. The Philippines was grouped with Bangladesh, Iran and Thailand at the qualifiers single group stage with the winner advancing to the Asian Cup finals. The team fell short of qualifying after losing to Thailand by a single goal despite winning convincingly over its other group opponents, Iran and Bangladesh.
2013–2015 Southeast Asian tournaments
The 2013 AFF Women's Championship saw the participation of the Philippine squad. The Philippines was grouped with Laos, Indonesia, hosts Myanmar and invitees Japan U23. The Philippines failed to proceed to the knock-out stage, after placing third in the group, with only the top two teams proceeding to the next phase of the tournament. The Philippines lost to Japan U23 and Myanmar and won against the other two teams. The women's national football team participated at the 2013 Southeast Asian Games. The Philippine Olympic Committee decided only to send the women's national football team. The committee decided against sending their men counterpart to the games. The Philippines failed to get past the Group Stage losing against all three nations grouped with the country. In February 2015, it was reported that PFF General Secretary Ed Gastanes said that the head coach position for the women's national team is vacant. The previous holder of the post, Ernie Nierras was not an A license coach meaning he was not able to continue his coaching stint. Nierras led the team in his last competitive match as coach in 2013. The PFF announced in April 2015 that Bautista was appointed as head coach and was tasked to first lead the team at the 2015 AFF Women's Championship. Bautista is also the first female coach of the national team. The national team failed to get past the group stage of the 2015 AFF Women's Championship only winning a game against Malaysia and losing the other two matches.
2018 AFC Women's Asian Cup
The Philippines made their first appearance at the AFC Women's Asian Cup in 2018 since the qualification phase for the continental tournament was introduced. The national team secured qualification by finishing second in their group behind Jordan, the 2018 final tournament hosts in the qualifiers. As part of their preparations for the continental cup, the Philippine Football Federation launched the "Project Jordan" task force to help the team qualify for the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup. The PFF secured major sponsorship and hired United States-based English coach, Richard Boon; an identification camp was held in the United States participated by national team players and prospects. A three month training camp in the United States was later set up in late December 2017. In March 2018, Boon was replaced by French coach Rabah Benlarbi as the national team held a camp at the PFF National Training Centre in Philippines. Before participating in the Jordan to compete in the Asian Cup the national team will hold their last camp in Japan from 20 to 27 March 2018.
2019 onwards
The Philippines attained its highest FIFA ranking in July 2019 at 67th place. They were also the best improved team moving up 7 places from the previous rankings.
The Philippines entered a qualification tournament for the Olympics. At the first two editions of the Olympics where women's football was played, the standings at the preceding FIFA Women's World Cup was used. With the country not being able to qualify for the final tournament of the 1995 and 1999 FIFA Women's World Cups the country was not able to qualify for the 1996 and 2000 Olympics.
AFC Women's Asian Cup
Asian Games
AFF Women's Championship
The Philippines participated in all editions of the tournament, except in 2006, when the women's national team did not enter. In 2019, the team advanced to the semifinals for the first time in history, finishing in 4th place. Prior to 2019, the team has never managed to get past the Group Stage of the AFF Championship.
SEA Games
At the 1985 Southeast Asian Games, where women's football was first contested in the regional tournament, the Philippines finished third place. However, there were only three participants of the tournament with the Philippines losing its only two games against Singapore and Thailand. The national team has never managed to get past the Group Stage at the succeeding editions of the tournament which contested women's football and did not participate at the 2009 edition.
